Just How Important IS Black Friday to Email Marketing?

Every email marketer – and these days pretty much everyone – is aware of “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday.” These are the two days of the year when retailers pull out all of the stops to get customers through their doors or on their websites to buy, buy and hopefully buy some more.

So, it should come as no surprise that these all-important shopping days are critical for email marketers as well. The only question was just how critical, and which of the two days was more important?

Well, email marketing firm Movable Ink has just released some very interesting numbers for this year, and the results might surprise you. According to the data, 38 percent more emails were opened on Black Friday than on Cyber Monday. Considering that Cyber Monday is known as the day for online shopping, it’s a bit shocking that so many more emails were opened on the day known for brick-and-mortar shopping.

One possible explanation for this interesting information is the huge increase in the sheer volume of emails retailers sent this year, and how early they got the whole process started. As competition for consumers has grown more and more fierce, marketers have ramped up their email campaigns. Movable Ink reported that the total volume of emails sent over the furious shopping weekend was up an astounding 3,085% year-over-year. That is not a misprint, that is just a staggering increase in email volume.

Another interesting tidbit from Black Friday is that more than half, 59.9% to be exact, of marketing emails were opened on mobile devices. Most likely this is due to the fact that consumers were out and about at the brick-and-mortar stores, and checking their emails for special offers and coupons.

This kind of valuable information can assist marketers in future holiday seasons as they attempt to tailor their campaigns to take advantage of the Black Friday shopping frenzy. While Cyber Monday is still an undoubtedly important day for email marketers, it appears the “classic” shopping day, Black Friday, is still the top dog and should remain the primary focus for savvy email marketers.